1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique to perform scroll display of a plurality of pieces of content data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a playback of video contents received through a network or stored in a storage unit in high volume has been becoming a typical technique according to a development of a high-speed network and an expansion of a capacity of the storage unit such as a hard disk drive. According to the above technique, the plurality of video contents are replayed and displayed on a screen while the video contents are scrolled on the display screen.
When the plurality of video contents are displayed on the display screen at once, according to the conventional method, an input from a user is received, a video content to be displayed next is determined, the determined video content is subjected to decoding processing, and the decoded video content is displayed on the screen, in this order. However, since the video content to be displayed is subjected to the decoding processing after the video content to be displayed is determined, such a problem arises that a delay occurs between a time at which the video content to be displayed is determined and a time at which the video content is actually displayed on the screen.
To resolve the above problem, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-66944 discusses a method by which data which has a high possibility to be output next, is preliminarily held in a cache memory when a plurality of video contents or thumbnail images of the video contents are subjected to a multi-image display on the screen. By the technique, the data presently being output as well as the data within a predetermined range preceding and subsequent to the data presently being output is converted into output images and held as the converted images as much as the capacity of the cache memory allows depending on a file management structure.
However, in the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-66944, it is not possible to predict and prepare the data, which has a high possibility to be output next, when a plurality of arbitrary video contents are subjected to the multi-image display independent from the file management structure. Further, in the above described technique, it is not possible to predict or prepare the data, which has a high possibility to be output next, according to a moving condition of the screen when the video contents are subjected to the multi-image display.